Past, Present and Future (Ephesians 2:1-7)

When we read a biographical dictionary, we will go through summaries of the lives of notable individuals. We know that as we read them there was much more to each person that is contained in the summaries. Yet the summaries can be valuable in letting readers know what the persons in the dictionary were like.

In this set of verses, Paul summarises the past, present and future aspects of salvation that describes the experience of every believer. There is much more to each believer than the summary contains. Yet it is an accurate summary that is sufficient for us to be able to assess every believer’s experience of divine grace.

It is likely that Paul is continuing with his stress on divine power that he mentions at the end of the previous chapter and which he wanted each believer to appreciate. If that is the case, then we can see a parallel with what happened to Jesus and what happens to his people – death, resurrection and exaltation. The display of divine power in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead and in his exaltation to the highest place in heaven was amazing. So, too, is the display of divine power that is revealed in the salvation that God the Father provides for his people.

Our sad past

In verses 1-3, Paul describes all spiritually unregenerate people, including believers prior to their conversion, and says four things about them. He mentions their way of life, the influence of the devil, the significance of what he calls the flesh, and the attitude of God towards them. 

As we can see, believers, before they were born again, were in as bad a spiritual state as others. They were spiritually dead which meant that they were sinful, but not inert or static. As far as their sins were concerned, they continually committed sins of omission and commission. Omission is seen in the word ‘sins’ which means to fall short of God’s standards; commission is seen in the word ‘trespasses’ which means to go beyond what is stated by God in his law. Both can happen simultaneously – for example, I sin when I fail to worship God and I trespass when I worship something else instead.

The apostle also says that this lifestyle was worldly in the sense that it was the outlook of everyone. Moreover, it was stimulated and guided by the devil, here called ‘the prince of the power of the air’, which may be a way of distinguishing his kind of rule from rulers who govern on land and sea. It could also indicate that the normal barriers to earthly kingdoms don’t exist in his, and that he is able to move rapidly throughout his domain. Nevertheless, he is not omnipresent, and he needs to use demonic agents to implement his plans, and those activities are inevitably temptations which people agree with.

We know that Paul uses the word ‘flesh’ in various places in his writings to describe the state of fallen humankind. Here he says what the passions of the flesh are – they are the desires of the body and the mind, which means that the flesh, in this sense, is not limited to physical activities. Obviously, some desires of the mind are worked out in physical behaviour, but not all. Fallen humans think in sinful ways continually. 

Those details are serious enough, but what makes them more serious is the attitude of God towards them as sinners. His continual response is that of ongoing wrath. This does not mean that God has uncontrollable rage or fury. Rather his wrath is the exact required response of his offended justice towards those who break his laws willingly. He is angry against sinners and he will punish them for their sins unless they seek his mercy. 

Yet with regard to those who do seek eventually for mercy through Christ, God the Father is angry with them until they do. We cannot use God’s foreknowledge of his plan of mercy as a reason for saying that his people somehow are outside his wrath before they are converted. We know that many of them experienced various expressions of divine punishment before they were converted. Indeed, often it was such experiences that first caused them to think seriously about their spiritual state. In Isaiah 12, we have a song from those who realise that God is not angry with them anymore.

Our amazing present (vv. 4-6)

Thankfully, the Lord whom his people had offended had a different plan for them. Here the apostle focuses particularly on what God the Father did and mentions four things about him. 

First, the Father loved his people. Paul calls it a great love, and it is great in all its dimensions. One expression of his great love was his intense desire to show mercy to those whom he loved eternally. His mercy is vast enough to pay all the debts that they had accumulated because of their sins. This way of putting it means that God can pardon the greatest of sinners. Paul stresses that the Father did this while they were living in rebellion against him, refusing to acknowledge his authority, and intent on breaking his law. 

Second, the Father regenerated his people. We know that it is the work of the Holy Spirit to bring new life into dead souls, but we are not to suggest that the Father and the Son are mere onlookers at that moment. The Father calls sinners to come to Jesus and trust in him and that is what he is doing at the moment of their saving faith. At that moment, they are united to Christ in a living, permanent union. It is all of grace – there was nothing in the individual who has believed in Jesus to cause God to give him or her this great spiritual blessing. But they move from being children of wrath to becoming children of God forever.

Third, the Father raised up his people and caused them to live with Jesus in the heavenly places. I suspect that this means that now live in the realm of spiritual blessings rather than in the environment they previously lived in. Those blessings, or some of them, are mentioned in Ephesians 1:3-14. Instead of being influenced by the devil and led about by him, they now experience the activities of God on their behalf and are renewed in their minds. The devil will try and prevent them from getting the benefits of those blessings, but unlike before they can now resist him through the strength of divine grace.

Fourth, the Father seated them with Jesus. This is hard for us to grasp but one way of looking at it is to recognise that a kind of spiritual authority is now given to believers. Jesus is seated on his throne. We do not have his authority, but we are given some, particularly in the area of prayer where we pray in the name of Jesus and ask God to fulfil his promises. Also we have some authority over sin in the sense that we can resist its power in our lives, even although the conflict will not be easy. It is hard for us on earth to see the exact way that our union with Jesus affects the way that we are perceived in heaven, but we should think about the way Paul describes believers when he says that they already are seated with Christ.

Our response to this incredible change should be one of continual gratitude to our heavenly Father for the riches of his grace shown to us.

Our certain future (v. 7)

We know that sometimes it is possible to say a great deal in a few words. That is the case here with Paul when he describes the eternal experience of God’s people. We can see that he describes the future eternity as ‘the coming ages’, which could suggest that it is divided into innumerable ages rather than one long continuation or even a static, unchanging state of glorification. It is not possible for us to know what God has planned to do in the eternity ahead for his people.

Yet one detail is certain. The Father intends to use the whole of eternity to show the riches of his grace to his people. Those riches are immeasurable and will always be so. The number who will receive these blessings will be large, but their constant use of them will not deplete the divine resources in any way. The amount of divine blessings will always be full.

What kind of blessings will be ours during those ages? First, we will have increased capability to embrace them and appreciate them. If I met the Queen when I was a child, I would have no idea of my privilege. In a greater sense, in this life we are but children aware that we have been brought into union with Someone very great, whom we know can do great things. In eternity, we will discover what they are.

Second, the riches of God’s grace will be conveyed to us through Jesus Christ and he will do this personally and perpetually. What this will mean we cannot say, but we can rejoice that it is going to happen.